Teaching On Term Paper Writing

In teaching on writing a term paper the following steps are advised for the best results as far as research/term paper writing is concerned.

1. Choosing a Topic;
Some fields of study may require students to deal with one particular topic but mostly that is not the case. Students are given the liberty to select the topic that most interest them. A student should be critical in selecting a topic that will best give sufficient information on a subject that has not been clearly elaborated, is inaccurate or discovers related topics that can provide meaningful results. This therefore requires a student to read widely and come up with a research question. The subject chosen should be clear and precise. Wide topics always mislead the reader and become cumbersome to the writer.

2. Information Sources.
After selecting a subject from the text, a student needs to go further in search of materials that touch on that topic. These materials need to be recent since information changes with time. Most lectures require the source of material not to be past 20 years old on the shelves especially if one is not required to tackle a historical event. Looking at the book titles in relation to the required subject the student can peruse on the abstract to find the topic one is looking for. Note the points that is needed and if a whole quotation is needed, a student is allowed to uproot the information as it is. Such a books’ reference is noted down for reference purpose carefully writing its author/ editor, title, volume number, year of publication, place of publication and the page which that quotation is found. First year students find it hard in finding information materials from the library that is why prior unit in Communication Skills:101 is needed to teach them on proper use of the catalog, call numbers of the books and the standard arrangement of books in Libraries so as to reduce time wasted in searching for a particular book or journal. It is important to note, when collecting data, accuracy and honesty is called for while fully exploring the research question from both sides of the coin. While reading through the information materials a student is free to pinpoint any shortcoming as presented by the author and by so doing he/she earns a higher score to critical thinking and proper presentation of an argument.

3. Sketching The Outline;
When a student has collected sufficient data for the term paper, he should go through the collected notes see whether these information support the topic as was desired. And if so what can he make out of it? Do these pieces of information interrelate? How can they be arranged to bring out coherence in ideas and thought?

The main objective at this stage is to create a flow of thought throughout the script; right from the title to the content. This will require the need to subdivide the notes into subtitles or subtopics to support the main topic. These subtopics should be arranged in a way that one topic smoothly flows in to another which can be arranged chronologically from the past to the present into the future. One can also fin out that one sub-title can have several topics within it and can appear in the following format.

1.…………..
(a.)……………
i.)……….
ii.)…………
iii)…………….
And so on,

4. Drafting
This can be done at least three times until when the writer feels that what he is about to present to the lecturer is good enough. The first drafting comprises of giving an introduction on what is in the content. Here, one can tell the reader an overview of the statement purpose in the introduction, content itself in the body, then give the statement to summarize and a conclusion. one has to proof read until the desire draft is achieved for presentation.